Tuesday, 12 July 2011

The death of the environment ministry. An obituary.

Today you were killed by the government.You had been in coma for years before. Until a man called Jairam Ramesh came and breathed life into you.He said he was doing things “in enlightened national interest”. And he did. He thwarted Monsanto’s attempts at contaminating our biodiversity.He said no to Vedanta who would have us believe that Niyamgiri was their jagir and the tribals their slaves.This man tried. Failed. Stumbled. Bumbled. Got pushed over. Made mistakes. Did wrong. Did right.He was a human after all. Standing in the crossfire between the development debate and the environmental concerns.It’s a damn tricky place to be in. Try talking to your rich friends about tribals and mining and see how red eared and how blood pressured you become. And this man was making policies and making decisions that not only angered the rich friends and industry but the corrupt politicians as well.And when they clipped his wings, he still pranced around, making noises.Then, with one move they chopped off his head. And said they promoted him.A country where the environment ministry isn’t the most important ministry has lost its bearings. To take away the ministry from a man who cared, is not promotion. It’s murder.Of the environment ministry.Monsanto, Vedanta, POSCO, you win this round. There is a chink in our armour.

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Illustrations 2009-2012

Illustrations. 2008-2009.

Published Books

D&AD

Patrick Baglee of Navy Blue Design at a D&AD talk, speaking about the Midland books I designed. In another talk they were hailed as some of the finest pieces of design writing.

The Great Indian Clearance Sale

The Great Indian Clearance Sale is an ideology-free art project. It's an adventure in information. We look at sources of information like Down to Earth, indiatogether.org, infochangeindia.org, Tehelka amongst others, and try to visualize the information in interesting ways.

The Great Indian Clearance Sale on Treehugger

My art project covered in the site I respect the most.

Thoughts on climate change

From Sep 08 - Feb 2009, I blogged about climate change in European Journalism Centre's blogging competition. These are my posts. There was a handsome prize in the first round for me, and then some. But the most amazing thing about the blogging were the debates. Hope you enjoy them as much as I did.